Category Archives: Space Travel

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Growing lettuce in space isn't just another small step for man, it's a giant leap for vegetables everywhere. Peas, radishes and lettuce are all being grown in special growth chambers on the International Space Station, and a study published March 6, 2020, in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science proves space lettuce is not only safe to eat but just as healthy as its earthly counterpart. It's even got potential to be a game changer for longer missions, and the lessons learned will help greenhouse gardeners grow healthier veggies here on Earth.

Astronauts normally rely on a limited menu made up of mostly packaged foods, often with lower levels of vitamins and minerals. But lettuce has key nutrients as well as phenolics, molecules that have anticancer, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties that give space travelers both a physical and psychological boost. American astronaut Joseph M. Acaba shared on Twitter"... Nothing beats fresh, homegrown food."

Space lettuce is grown under LED lights and of course less gravity. And after 33 to 56 days, it's ready to be safely enjoyed fresh and full of nutrition.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of an outer space salad is its ability to help extend exploration missions. Mars isn't exactly just around the corner it can take six months to travel the 140 million-mile (225 million-kilometer) distance to the red planet. And that's just one-way. Plus, growing food while in orbit naturally cuts down on the astronomical budget of space travel.

While only a lucky few will get the chance to make the trip into outer space, anyone can visit The Kennedy Space Center outside of Orlando, Florida, to get a feel for the experience. Time your visit right and you may even see a rocket launch. Of course you won't be able to try the space lettuce, but the veggies you buy at the grocery may soon benefit from the lessons learned in space. NASA's data will help farmers use optimal amounts of water and nutrients to grow healthier crops in greenhouses and small spaces.

The science of food is quickly expanding into the last frontier, and space lettuce is graciously leading the way. Its journey will help scientists grow other types of leafy vegetables as well as tomatoes and peppers, giving astronauts, as well as us here on Earth, more access to the nutrients we need.

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Space Lettuce Is Out of This World Good - HowStuffWorks

Elon Musksquickstart guide to space travelmostly contains technical data, as well as a bit of background information and top-level overviews on how to use anything. The solid information is aimed towards potential Starship customers, who can employ the guide as a resource for preliminary payload accommodations data.

In this regard, using a Starship spacecraft from SpaceX could become the latest form of container shipping. Coming with a standardized, predictable quantity of space on a fleet is precisely what led to the manufacturing of cargo containers, which decreased cost across almost all ranges of shipping by saving fastidious labor to charge and discharge individual items or boxes. Musk is well-known for the fact that he has even managed to recycle cargo containers in the building of his SpaceX Starship facility.

Inverse hasreportedthat a Twitter user first observed the potentially massive payload a Starship cargo can transport into low Earth orbit. A table in the user guide mentions more than 100 tons, but from another math in there, another result could come out, and that would be 150 tons. Even for higher orbit altitude, SpaceXs rocket is able to carry up to 21 tons. That figure is massive enough to include practically all the various satellite models ever launched.

The Starship is one of Elon Musks most ambitious, outstanding, and fast-moving projects from its portfolio that includes a massive amount of perplexing ambition and scope already. SpaceX intends to debut its first commercial flight in 2021, with a Moon trip set for 2023.

Even if the space company wont be able to attain these goals, Musk has a case history of both delivering in short periods and staying flexible and positive after all types of failures and recurrences that all major projects face.

For longer trips to the Moon, and later on, to Mars, the company says Starship is able to transport up to 100 people, which is numerous times more than the current agenda of just about 12 people in one spacecraft at one time. If those plans end up becoming a reality, the role of space travel in the public eyes would definitely change.

There has never been a group of spacecraft of the size Musk has planned for SpaceX, but seeing how ambitious he is, the possibilities are incredibly exciting.

Paula is an outstanding reporter for Henri Le Chat Noir, always finding new and interesting topics to bring to the portal. She mostly crafts Science and Technology news articles, covering everything one needs to know about those niches. Paula studied at Concordia University.

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Elon Musks Plans for Space Travel are Incredibly Ambitious and Exciting - Henri Le Chat Noir

A three-year, nearly $5 million award from NASA will allow researchers at the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine and their partners at Space Tango to develop a new integrated space stem cell orbital research laboratory within the International Space Station (ISS) and launch three collaborative research projects within it.

Stem cells self-renew, generating more stem cells, and specialize into tissue-specific cells, such as blood, brain and liver cells, making them ideal for biological studies far from Earths resources. The goal of the new effort is to leverage microgravity and these unique properties of stem cells to better understand how space flight affects the human body. The studies will also inform how aging, degenerative diseases, cancers and other conditions develop in a setting with increased exposure to ionizing radiation and pro-inflammatory factors. The findings from these studies may speed the development of new therapeutics for a broad array of degenerative diseases on Earth.

International Space Station (ISS) as seen from Space Shuttle Discovery in 2007. Credit: NASA

We envision that the next thriving ecosystem of commercial stem cell companies, the next nexus for biotechnology, could be created 250 miles overhead by the establishment of these capabilities on the ISS, said Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, co-principal investigator of the award and Koman Family Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, deputy director of Moores Cancer Center, director of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center and director of the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic at UC San Diego Health.

The projects first flight to the ISS is planned for mid-2021. The ISS stem cell lab is expected to be fully operational and self-sustaining by 2025.

With hardware designed by Space Tango, a developer of fully automated, remote-controlled systems for research and manufacturing on orbit, initial projects in the new lab will include investigations of:

Blood cancers and immune reactivation syndromes, led by Jamieson, who is also a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Sheldon Morris, MD, MPH, clinical professor of family medicine and public health and infectious diseases at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

In whats known as the NASA Twins Study, investigators around the nation assessed identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. Scott flew aboard the ISS for 342 days in 2015 and 2016, while his identical twin brother, Mark, remained on Earth. In a paper published in Science in early 2019, researchers, including UC San Diego School of Medicines Brinda Rana, PhD, described the many ways Scotts body differed from Marks due to his time spent in microgravity, including signs of pre-cancer.

Co-Principal Investigator Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD.

In the new ISS lab, Jamieson and Morris will use stem cell-derived blood and immune cells to look for biomarkers tell-tale molecular changes as cancer develops and immune cells malfunction in microgravity. They will also work with experts in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and Space Tango to build special microscopes and bioreactors that fit the ISS lab space and transmit images to Earth in near real-time.

If we can find early predictors of cancer progression on the ISS, we are ideally positioned to rapidly translate them into clinical trials in our Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center back on Earth, Jamieson said.

Brain stem cell regeneration and repair, led by Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine and director of the Stem Cell Program at UC San Diego School of Medicine and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Erik Viirre, MD, PhD, professor of neurosciences and director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.

Co-Principal Investigator Alysson Muotri, PhD, holding brain organoids in a laboratory dish at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications.

This project will build on a previous proof-of concept flight that sent a payload of stem cell-derived human brain organoids to the ISS in 2019. Brain organoids also called mini-brains are 3D cellular models that represent aspects of the human brain in the laboratory. Brain organoids help researchers track human development, unravel the molecular events that lead to disease and test new treatments.

Since their last trip to space, the UC San Diego team has significantly advanced the brain organoids levels of neural network activity electrical impulses that can be recorded by multi-electrode arrays.

All the research models we currently use to study aging in a laboratory dish rely on artificial things, such as increasing oxidative stress or manipulating genes associated with aging, said Muotri, who is also co-principal investigator on the award. Here, were taking a different approach to speed up the aging process and study how it plays a role in developmental diseases and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimers.

Liver cell injury and repair, led by David A. Brenner, MD, vice chancellor of health sciences at UC San Diego, and Tatiana Kisseleva, MD, PhD, associate professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

On Earth, Brenner and Kisseleva study ailments of the liver, such as liver fibrosis and steatohepatitis, a type of fatty liver disease. Liver diseases can be caused by alcohol use, obesity, viral infection and a number of other factors. They are interested in determining the impact microgravity may have on liver function, which could provide insights into diseases on Earth, as well as potential effects during space travel. In the future, the team may test therapies for steatohepatitis in the new ISS lab, where microgravity mimics aging and can lead to liver cell injury.

These insights may allow us to develop new ways to stop the progression of liver disease and cirrhosis conditions that affect approximately 4.5 million people in the U.S., Brenner said.

Once the ISS stem cell lab is validated, the team said it will replicate the Earth-based Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, a collaboratory in La Jolla, Calif. that brings together experts from five research institutions: UC San Diego, Scripps Research, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Plans for the new ISS research lab and initial projects were made possible by an award from the NASA Research Opportunities for ISS Utilization. The UC San Diego team also credits the support of philanthropists T. Denny Sanford, Rebecca Moores Foundation and the Koman Family Foundation; their leadership, Pradeep Khosla, chancellor of UC San Diego, Patty Maysent, CEO of UC San Diego Health, Scott Lippman, MD, director of Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health; and previous research and infrastructure funding from the National Institutes of Health, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), Pedal the Cause, and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Disclosures: Muotri is a co-founder and has equity interest in TISMOO, a company dedicated to genetic analysis and brain organoid modeling, focusing on therapeutic applications customized for autism spectrum disorder and other neurological disorders with genetic origins. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

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UC San Diego to Advance Stem Cell Therapies in New Space Station Lab - UC San Diego Health

LinkedIn editors recently compiled an extensive round-up of companies hiring during the coronavirus pandemic. The list includes Instacart bringing in 300,000 contract workers, Walmart adding 150,000 workers in its distribution and fulfillment centers, and Lowe's seeking an additional 30,000 employees to fill current demand. Nearly all jobs on offer deal with supply chain management in some capacity. At the very end of the list is an outlier:

"SpaceX is hiring an unknown number of workers as it looks to ramp up production of its Starships."

While American corporations scramble to keep supplies moving (as well as potentially endangering workers accepting those jobs), Elon Musk is looking for an escape plan. Then again, the dream of inhabiting other planets and traveling to distant universes seems baked into the human imagination.

Musk isn't the only one dreaming of a galaxy far, far away. NASA's Artemis program, with the more humble goal of developing a consistent presence on the Earth's moon, is full steamer, solar electric propulsionahead with its plan of setting up camp by 2024. The agency hopes to land the first woman on the Moon's surface that year, with the goal of "sustainable exploration" by 2028.

This news comes in the wake of a new 13-page report, "NASA's Plan for Sustained Lunar Exploration and Development." NASA believes that in the coming decades, the Moon will "be a source of new scientific advances and economic growth." Once camp is established there, the agency hopes to use the Moon as a launch pad for the next stage in space exploration.

As NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine commented on April 2:

"After 20 years of continuously living in low-Earth orbit, we're now ready for the next great challenge of space exploration the development of a sustained presence on and around the Moon. For years to come, Artemis will serve as our North Star as we continue to work toward even greater exploration of the Moon, where we will demonstrate key elements needed for the first human mission to Mars."

The astronauts will face many hurdles trying to establish a camp near the Moon's south pole, such as radiation shielding, lunar dust, and extremely cold, long lunar nights. Once in place, these brave voyagers will test out new mobility technologies to help prepare humans for the next leap to Mars.

The report expresses interest in the development of relationships with private industry as well. While international partners are cited, there is an emphasis of America remaining at the forefront of space exploration:

"As other nations steadily increase their presence and spending, American leadership is now called for to lead the next phase of humanity's quest to create a future comprised of endless discovery and growth in the final frontier."

NASA goes so far to dub this the "Artemis Generation." The agency puts forward a three-domain exploration strategy to coincide with the timeline of this generation. The first is low-Earth orbit, which it wants to open up to commercial operations and for testing new technologies; the second is the Moon, with the goal of long-term robotic explorations "with robust commercial and international partnerships"; and finally, Mars, which by reading over the document amounts to the grand goal of stating, "America was here first."

Kicking off this project in 2023 with robots, NASA's ambitions include opening up "terrestrial robotic mining systems and next-generation power storage." The robots will hunt for oxygen and water, or, as they frame it, "extraction of usable resources." The more humans have at the ready, the easier the transition will be. The agency also believes that by intensively researching the Moon we will better understand the evolution of our own planet.

The first step is the development of the Gateway, the space travel path between Earth and the Moon. This requires numerous robot missions that establish a landing system in order to create a stable pathway for future astronauts to travel. There is political motive here as well: "The Gateway will establish U.S. leadership and a sustained presence in the region between the Moon and Earth."

Thus far, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency have signed on as partners in the development of the Gateway. Russia has expressed interest in contributing an airlock. High priority items include a better understanding of heliophysics, radiation, and space weather. As the initial missions establish these conditions, the plan is to begin launching humans in four years' time.

Upon establishing the Artemis Base Camp at the south pole, astronauts will spend from one to two months in order to "develop new technologies that advance our national industries and discover new resources that will help grow our economy."

Though Mars (and beyond) is the long-term goal, the maximization of revenue seems to be the primary driver of this mission. Indefinite exploration of the Moon is in the plan, with the potential for commercial space travel. Besides, as NASA concludes, the moon is only "a relatively manageable 250,000 miles" away.

And yes, in case you were wondering, the "search for Martian life" is in there. Away we go.

--

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook. His next book is "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."

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The Moon as a launchpad to Mars: NASA's Artemis Project moves forward - Big Think

A three-year, nearly $5 million award from NASA will allow researchers at the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine and their partners at Space Tango to develop a new integrated space stem cell orbital research laboratory within the International Space Station (ISS) and launch three collaborative research projects within it.Stem cells self-renew, generating more stem cells, and specialize into tissue-specific cells, such as blood, brain and liver cells, making them ideal for biological studies far from Earths resources. The goal of the new effort is to leverage microgravity and these unique properties of stem cells to better understand how space flight affects the human body. The studies will also inform how aging, degenerative diseases, cancers and other conditions develop in a setting with increased exposure to ionizing radiation and pro-inflammatory factors. The findings from these studies may speed the development of new therapeutics for a broad array of degenerative diseases on Earth.

We envision that the next thriving ecosystem of commercial stem cell companies, the next nexus for biotechnology, could be created 250 miles overhead by the establishment of these capabilities on the ISS, said Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, co-principal investigator of the award and Koman Family Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, deputy director of Moores Cancer Center, director of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center and director of the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic at UC San Diego Health.

The projects first flight to the ISS is planned for mid-2021. The ISS stem cell lab is expected to be fully operational and self-sustaining by 2025.

With hardware designed by Space Tango, a developer of fully automated, remote-controlled systems for research and manufacturing on orbit, initial projects in the new lab will include investigations of:Blood cancers and immune reactivation syndromes, led by Jamieson, who is also a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Sheldon Morris, MD, MPH, clinical professor of family medicine and public health and infectious diseases at UC San Diego School of Medicine.In whats known as the NASA Twins Study, investigators around the nation assessed identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. Scott flew aboard the ISS for 342 days in 2015 and 2016, while his identical twin brother, Mark, remained on Earth. In a paper published in Science in early 2019, researchers, including UC San Diego School of Medicines Brinda Rana, PhD, described the many ways Scotts body differed from Marks due to his time spent in microgravity, including signs of pre-cancer.

In the new ISS lab, Jamieson and Morris will use stem cell-derived blood and immune cells to look for biomarkers tell-tale molecular changes as cancer develops and immune cells malfunction in microgravity. They will also work with experts in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and Space Tango to build special microscopes and bioreactors that fit the ISS lab space and transmit images to Earth in near real-time.

If we can find early predictors of cancer progression on the ISS, we are ideally positioned to rapidly translate them into clinical trials in our Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center back on Earth, Jamieson said.Brain stem cell regeneration and repair, led by Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine and director of the Stem Cell Program at UC San Diego School of Medicine and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Erik Viirre, MD, PhD, professor of neurosciences and director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.This project will build on a previous proof-of concept flight that sent a payload of stem cell-derived human brain organoids to the ISS in 2019. Brain organoids also called mini-brains are 3D cellular models that represent aspects of the human brain in the laboratory. Brain organoids help researchers track human development, unravel the molecular events that lead to disease and test new treatments.

Since their last trip to space, the UC San Diego team has significantly advanced the brain organoids levels of neural network activity electrical impulses that can be recorded by multi-electrode arrays.

All the research models we currently use to study aging in a laboratory dish rely on artificial things, such as increasing oxidative stress or manipulating genes associated with aging, said Muotri, who is also co-principal investigator on the award. Here, were taking a different approach to speed up the aging process and study how it plays a role in developmental diseases and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimers.Liver cell injury and repair, led by David A. Brenner, MD, vice chancellor of health sciences at UC San Diego, and Tatiana Kisseleva, MD, PhD, associate professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.On Earth, Brenner and Kisseleva study ailments of the liver, such as liver fibrosis and steatohepatitis, a type of fatty liver disease. Liver diseases can be caused by alcohol use, obesity, viral infection and a number of other factors. They are interested in determining the impact microgravity may have on liver function, which could provide insights into diseases on Earth, as well as potential effects during space travel. In the future, the team may test therapies for steatohepatitis in the new ISS lab, where microgravity mimics aging and can lead to liver cell injury.

These insights may allow us to develop new ways to stop the progression of liver disease and cirrhosis conditions that affect approximately 4.5 million people in the U.S., Brenner said.

Once the ISS stem cell lab is validated, the team said it will replicate the Earth-based Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, a collaboratory in La Jolla, Calif. that brings together experts from five research institutions: UC San Diego, Scripps Research, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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UCSD To Advance Stem Cell Therapies in New Space Station Lab - Technology Networks

A physicist named Nicolas Gisin from the University of Geneva recently published a series of papers that could change our entire view on the concept of time.

Gisins work attempts to reconcile modern-day quantum mechanics theory with an alternative math theory developed by Dutch mathematician Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer in the early 20th century called intuitionistic mathematics.

That may sound like the math version of holistic medicine but Brouwers theory has persisted for more than a century and Gisins ideas may just propel it back into the spotlight. The theory itself is complex, but its biggest drawing point is that it removes the mathematical need for something called the excluded middle.

The excluded middle, in math, represents the idea that if a statement is made then either it or its negating statement is true I have five apples or I dont have five apples, for example.

Einsteins theory of relativity is held together by deterministic math, which requires the excluded middle as a concept.

According to the theory of relativity, everything thats ever happened, is happening, or will ever happen was set into motion at the moment of the universes existence hence deterministic.

Intuitionistic math says the opposite: math cant tell us whats going to happen next because, much like a qubit in the quantum universe remains in multiple states at once until its observed, the next number in a mathematical sequence cannot be accurately predicted except in hindsight, or with a Gods eye view.

In Gisins paper Mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics, he argues that debates between Brouwer and intuistionistic math supporters and Einstein and determinism supporters should be revisited. According to Gisin:

Einstein himself felt uncomfortable with his beloved physics lacking the concept of now although admittedly, he didnt see any way to incorporate it. He thus concluded that one has to live with this state of affairs.

Those in Einsteins camp got around the lack of an explanation for now in physics by adding infinities to their math. If you, for example, assume a sequence goes on infinitely, you can bend space-time theories to demonstrate a singular, infinite continuum that exists like a giant vinyl record where we, the observers, are the needle.

In this scenario, now only exists because were here to watch it all time is relative. Theoretically, if we built a time machine, we could travel to a now that already happened or has yet to occur. Thats the best-case scenario for physical, Back To The Future-style, time travel.

But, if Gisin and his 20th century inspirations are correct, this would be impossible. As Gisin writes:

A finite volume of space cant contain more than a finite amount of information and physically relevant numbers cant contain infinite information.

One interpretation of this statement is that theres simply no way an infinite universe could blink into existence physically intertwined with time. If, as intuitionistic math tells us, time unfolds one step at a time, now is a moving target. Any attempt to travel through time would fail because, scientifically, were already traveling through time: from one unique, unfolding moment to the next.

The past, by this interpretation, no longer exists because time has no physical connection to reality. And the future cant exist, because it requires everything thats going to happen between now and then to happen in order for it to unfold. There is only now.

This might come across as a bummer to those of us hoping to get our Doctor Who on. But, maybe its a good thing. Quantum mechanics has some wacky principals that we could one day exploit for other cool things like relative time-travel (bending space around us so that we can travel long distances without aging). But were going to need to bridge the gap between quantum physics and classical physics first.

Gisin thinks intuitionistic math might get us there. According to him, it better reflects reality than the more popular alternatives. He writes:

Physics can be as successful if built on intuitionistic mathematics, even if this breaks its marriage to determinism. Contrary to usual expectations, I bet that the next physical theory will not be even more abstract than quantum field theory, but might well be closer to human experience.

H/t: QuantaMagazine

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New math theory suggests time travel is impossible - The Next Web

Flanked by war-torn buildings and half-baked attempts at skyscrapers, there is a sliver of Mediterranean skyline that Adam, the young protagonist in Between Beirut and the Moon, can glimpse from his balcony.

As the sky darkens and nets with stars during the all too frequent power cuts, he meditates on this stark vista, while listening to the distant echoes of afternoon prayers and the mournful laments of the door-to-door zucchini salesman.

Adam yearns to be like his heroes - Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, Buzz Aldrin - and explore brave new worlds, the space beyond that which he occupies, but who has ever heard of an Arab on the moon? Christened the Arab Armstrong and teased mercilessly by his friends and family, who joke he is fated to travel in a rocket called Camel One, Adam finds little support for his nascent ambition.

Palestine in 2048: Staring into a black mirror

We meet Adam as a young teenager, living in a cramped apartment in an ageing building in Ras Beirut, just off Hamra Street, with his book-hoarding, journalist father, nicotine-addicted mother and his feisty, pigtailed little sister.

In post-civil war Beirut, danger is still omnipresent, and the family regularly huddle in a tiny, claustrophobic bathroom, wedged against a porcelain sink, listening to the sounds of bombs going off in the distance.

As Adam states: It was the war of 67 or 82 or 00 or 06 and Israel and Lebanon were at it again. I, like my father before me and his father before him, were crouched inside the safest room in the house beside my family and hoping that no RPG rocket or bomb would land on my home.

The book follows Adam as he comes of age within the confines of Beirut at the tail end of the civil war that tore the city apart. This 15-year multifaceted war, fuelled by both internal and external powers, lasted from 1975 to 1990, and led to an estimated 150,000 deaths and an exodus of almost one million people.

The fighting was characterised by sectarian violence, which deeply affected the civilian population.

Despite this, Adams story is a joyful odyssey that catalogues the normal escapades of youth - playground japes, stern principals, first sexual encounters - against the backdrop of a shattered city, struggling to heal after decades of turmoil, while chronicling Adams own struggle to understand his countrys turbulent history. A past which, whether he likes it or not, encroaches on his own future.

Lounging on Ramlet al-Bayda (White Sands beach), the only public sandy shore left in Beirut, courtesy of the warlords who ran the country after the end of the civil war, with his friend Basil, flicking away used needles in order to sunbathe, the boys ruminate on which desert in the Middle East is more like the moon: Saudi Arabias or Dubais? Adam closes his eyes, and his French neighbour, a UN worker, recently killed in a bombing, comes to mind:

When I closed my eyes, I did not see Armstrongs moon landing or Sagans Cosmos I saw Saint Exuperys Sahara Desert with The Little Prince. I saw Monsieur Mermier on asteroid B-612. I saw him watering the rose, cleaning out the volcanoes, pulling up the baobabs. I saw him holding the princes sheep in a box and watching forty-four sunsets in one day.

Darkly comic in tone, the novel doesnt shy away from the truth about the constant threat of conflict, with tensions between Hezbollah and Israel regularly bringing the country to the brink of war. Nor does it shy away fromthe inherent trauma and the dire pressures this places on the family unit, and the wider community.

Bakhti, 29, employs humour to great effect. In one scene, Adam recounts a story when an RPG rocket landed in a corner of the living room in the 80s, tearing through the ceiling as it did so. His father hired the local carpenter Mehdi to patch up the hole,the only man available and willing at the time.

Bakhti sketches characters with great flair, and the novel brims with a rich cast of eccentrics

Mehdi kept promising to fix it properly but never returned, as Adam muses: Mehdi disappeared during the war. He was kidnapped, or killed, or immigrated to Montreal with his wife and son. My father would say that he spent half his life waiting for my mother, and the other half waiting for Mehdi.

Despite the frightening and alienating aspects of war, ordinary lives continue with all their foibles. So Adam and his friends frequent the Shipmans Crew pub as minors and drink the local 961 beer, while laughing at the barmans attempts to enforce his coaster rule.

Meanwhile, back in their cramped apartment, his fathers many tomes become playthings for him and his sister, a distraction from the outside world: I would stack the books on the floor over one another in such a way as to emulate a spaceship and pretend I was on my way to the moon. My sister would join in by spreading her little body across the floor and pretending to be a star with ponytails.

Bakhti sketches characters with great flair, and the novel brims with a rich cast of eccentrics, from Adams cursing Jesus-Muhammad-Christ journalist father to his poetry teacher, the round, sinister, bespectacled Mr Malik with his strange compass-style gait, one leg swinging around the other as he walks.

Even inanimate objects are given personalities and his fathers attachment to an ageing, white, second-hand American car, the Oldsmobile, or "white American" as christened by neighbours, is a source of pride.

The vehicle is too wide to be parked near their apartment and ends up being a casualty of a bombing riddled with bullets and littered with broken glass. It becomes a landmark, as it is too large to be towed, and home to a brown street cat that his father adores and feeds Cadbury Fruit and Nut.

The concept of space is a recurring motif throughout the novel. Adam is a product of an interfaith marriage: his mother Christian, his father Muslim. Tensions within the extended family are evident, reflecting the stigma that can sometimes exist around mixed faithmarriages in Lebanon and the wider Arab world.

At school, Adam navigates the space between these two religious identities, and, given his outsider status, is able to spot things he considers absurdities within religion in general.

So when a friends pious Muslim mother explains to Adams mother that when she instructed the boys to worship together, she noticed Adams prayer steps were off and could recommend a teacher that could rectify, Adams mother rages at him afterwards: The next time that woman makes you pray in her house, you do the steps to the fucking Macarena.

Adams feelings of frustration and powerlessness at his situation of growing up in a country fractured by war and religious strifeare distilled in a playground incident when he wreaks revenge on a slap-happy friend who claimed that Christians should turn the other cheekif they are hit because that is what their religion expects of them:

I imagined that he was an alien life form which I had come across in one of my journeys to outer space, whose sole aim was to spread a disease that would divide the entire human race into tiny little groups of men and women which fought endlessly amongst themselves and achieved progress only sporadically.

The choppy narration style employed throughout the novel is reminiscent of the strong Lebanese oral storytelling tradition that Adams father espouses, and Bakhti reproduces it here to great effect in order to reflect a shattered city in the process of recovering from civil war.

Conflict ripples throughout the generationsand the reader pieces Adams story together as he lurches from incident to incident with unwavering momentum, steering a path from a 14-year-old youth getting into scrapes with his classmates to a young adult finding his feet in a post-war city.

Adams longing for space travel is of course symptomatic of a deeper malaise and, as the dark shadows of Lebanons religious strife and difficult politics encroach, the tight bonds of his family unit are pushed to breaking point. In an article for An-Nahar, a Lebanese newspaper, Adams father writes poignantly:

I curse the country that presented our children with two alternatives: death or immigration, and instructed them to pick between the two. I curse the country that forced its parents to send their children to outer space, or worse Europe, and wave silently from afar

An adult Adam on Londons Westminster Bridge on a cold November night, in the arms of his German girlfriend, surmises he can never fully escape the gravitational pull of home, which is, in the end, so very much part of him.

Facts can tell you so much about a country, but humour can reveal its soul.

To his credit, Bakhti has crafted a warm, funny, charming tale that gives a deep insight into Lebanese culture and history, and the dilemmas facing the countrys young.

Between Beirut and the Moon, by A Naji Bakhti, is availablefromInflux Pressin June 2020

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'Between Beirut and the Moon': The story of an unfulfilled odyssey - Middle East Eye

When things get hectic here on planet earth, people sometimes look to outer space as the answer to humankinds problems. In that vein of thought, some investors might look to Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) stock as an escape hatch from the global pandemic brought on by the novel coronavirus.

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Is SPCE stock a smart way to sidestep the novel coronavirus crisis? That in itself is questionable. Besides, cautious investors must weigh the relative merits of the company, corona-resistant or not. So, the question remains: is Richard Bransons brainchild of a business more than just a flight of fancy?

As eccentric as Branson is, there is one class of individuals even more inscrutable: stock market analysts. A case in point would be Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who upgraded SPCE stock from equal weight to overweight but cut his price target from $30 to $24.

Thats a massive 20% price-target reduction. Try to wrap your head around that, and then reconcile it with Jonas overweight rating on the stock. He even admits that the company will face an expected ~$16 million per month cash burn.

While Bransons fantasy might capture the imagination, theres a fast-spreading pandemic happening here in the real world. Space tourism is a luxury, just like cruises and fine dining. People are reluctant to leave their homes, much less the atmosphere.

InvestorPlace contributorTezcan Gecgil reported that a trip on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft is expected to carry a price tag of $250,000 per person. As businesses and individuals are forced to reduce expenses during the coronavirus pandemic, its easy to imagine that outer-space trips wont be a fiscal priority even among the fabulously wealthy.

Virgin Galactic might be a space-tourism pioneer, but its fiscal puzzle appears to be missing some pieces. While the aforementioned analyst claimed that the companys balance sheet remains intact, Virgin Galactics filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission suggest otherwise.

Consider, for example, the Form 8-K reporting the so-called highlights of Virgin Galactics fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 financial results. There, its revealed that during the three months ending on Dec. 31, the company generated revenues of $529,000 and a net loss of $73 million.

Additionally, the adjusted EBITDA during that quarter showed a loss of $55 million. So much for the intact balance sheet, huh? Theres also a Form 10-K detailing the past three years worth of revenues or more accurately, the lack thereof.

In 2017, Virgin Galactics net loss was $138,187. The company posted a very similar net loss of $138,139 the following year, and 2019s net loss came to $210,935. Not to throw a wet blanket on everyones space-flight dreams, but Virgin Galactics fiscal track record isnt exactly astronomical.

Besides, there are too many things that could potentially go awry. AsInvestorPlace contributor Larry Ramer deftly explained, Virgin Galactics insurance costs will undoubtedly be quite high. Moreover, Ramer points out, its impossible to know whether a fatal accident will destroy the companys business.

Its perfectly fine to fantasize about traveling to outer space. Someday, this could be a profitable venture and a position in SPCE stock would, in theory at least, make sense. Until that time comes, lets leave space travel to the intrepid and Virgin Galactic stock to the starry-eyed.

David Moadel has provided compelling content and crossed the occasional line on behalf of Crush the Street, Market Realist, TalkMarkets, Finom Group, Benzinga, and (of course) InvestorPlace.com. He also serves as the chief analyst and market researcher for Portfolio Wealth Global and hosts the popular financial YouTube channel Looking at the Markets. As of this writing, David Moadel did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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Reality Will Bring SPCE Stock Back Down to Earth - Investorplace.com

On Friday, an interplanetary spacecraft will slingshot around Earth in the super early morning hours. The spacecraft, a joint European and Japanese creation, will use our planets gravity to brake its speed and change its course through the Solar System, putting itself on track to reach Mercury in the next five years.

The probe whipping by our planet is called BepiColombo, which is actually two spacecraft wrapped into one package. One spacecraft, designed and operated by the European Space Agency, is equipped with 11 instruments to study Mercury from the planets orbit. The second comes from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and its designed to study Mercury while spinning in orbit. Once they reach Mercury, the two spacecraft will break apart and revolve around the planet on their own, studying the worlds exterior and its inner core.

Before all that can happen, BepiColombo needs to make it to Mercury. Launched in October 2018, BepiColombos route to the planet is set to last a total of seven years, and a lot of that time is spent slowing down. Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, spacecraft that travel toward the planet are constantly being tugged by our Solar Systems star, causing them to speed up. BepiColombo has to repeatedly put on the brakes to make sure it doesnt go barreling into the Sun.

The probe is equipped with ion thrusters for maneuvering, but those wont be enough to slow BepiColombo down to the speeds it needs to reach to get into Mercurys orbit. Its very prohibitive to do this with fuel that you [load] on the spacecraft, Elsa Montagnon, a spacecraft operations manager for ESAs BepiColombo mission tells The Verge, noting youd need a lot of fuel to slow the spacecraft. Montagnon, who is responsible for the flyby, and the mission engineers have turned to the planets for help. We have developed a strategy where we do planetary flybys, so we will use the energy of the planets to slow down the spacecraft, she says. BepiColombo is set to swing by Earth and then by Venus twice before doing six flybys of Mercury. That all should be enough to get the dueling probes into orbit around the tiny planet.

As BepiColombo swings by Earth around 12:25AM ET on April 10th itll use the gravity of the planet to shift the vehicles speed and alter its trajectory toward the inner Solar System. The spacecraft will come within nearly 7,900 miles (12,700 kilometers) of Earth. During that time, many of the instruments on the probes will be gathering data. Some onboard cameras will take photographs, with engineers hoping to get a full sequence of images as BepiColombo approaches and then leaves the Earth.

Enthusiasts on the ground might be able to see the slingshotting spacecraft, too. As BepiColombo gets closer to Earth, it will brighten and become visible to those with telescopes or even binoculars and cameras. The ESA has details about how to spot the vehicles overhead. Anyone who manages to snap a picture of BepiColombo can submit it online as part of a contest. This will be really awesome for us and very nice for us to get pictures of the spacecraft as it says goodbye to the Earth for the last time, says Montagnon.

The flyby comes at a strange time for ESA, JAXA, and the rest of the world, as most people are sheltering in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has already affected space operations in Europe, with ESA opting to temporarily shut off instruments on some of its deep-space probes to prevent people from having to come into the agencys mission control center in Germany. ESA even postponed the launch of its Mars rover in part because of travel restrictions put in place to fight the pandemic.

The COVID-19 crisis will have an impact on the BepiColombo flyby, too, albeit a small one, since most of the work needed to prepare for the slingshot is already done. On February 26th, the mission team maneuvered BepiColombo slightly, to put it on track for the flyby, and since then, its path has been pretty stable, according to Montagnon. Basically all commands that the spacecraft needs for the flyby tomorrow are already up there, she says. So in principle, if everything went fine, you would not need us now.

Of course, engineers know not to be complacent, especially when it comes to interplanetary travel, so people will be on hand at mission control to monitor the event. We cannot handle this from home, because we need to watch this and be able to react very quickly, Montagnon says. This requires direct hands-on access to our operations systems. A team of eight colleagues will work in shifts at ESAs European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany. They will all practice social distancing while on site.

Ironically, Montagnon maintains that there probably wouldnt be a lot of people on site anyway, even if there wasnt a pandemic, as Friday is a bank holiday in Germany. However, more people probably would have showed if they could since the event is a big one for the BepiColombo mission. Because its an important moment for the mission, we would have had colleagues who dont have to be here, but like to be here with us for such a key moment. And we probably would have had somewhere between 10 and 20 other colleagues, Montagnon says.

Once this flyby is over, BepiColombo will speed toward the inner Solar System. Its next flyby, around Venus, is slated for October 16th this year. Perhaps by then, the team will be able to go back to normal operating procedures. But if not, the mission team has learned how to prepare for these flybys remotely. In times of anxiety, it forced us to change, Montagnon says. I think its not always been comfortable, but in the end, we finished and now everything is in place.

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A spacecraft is about to swing by Earth to get a gravity assist on its way to Mercury - The Verge

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic Holdings(NYSE:SPCE) is slated to report its first-quarter earnings after the market closes on May 5. During the companys earnings conference call, its management will review its first-quarter earnings and discuss its expectations for the remainder of the year.

Source: Tun Pichitanon / Shutterstock.com

SPCE stock has been on a bit of a bumpy ride over the past few months. After hitting a 52-week high in mid-February, the stock has bounced up and down ever since. Its interesting to see that the stock tends to rise as the market dips and then dip as the market rises.

Virgin Galactic is very different from other publicly traded companies. It is developing a commercial spaceflight system, but that takes a lot of time, and the company still has very low sales and very few customers.

Nonetheless, many investors are enthusiastic about SPCE stock, and its analysts are moderately upbeat about it. But the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has caused problems for many companies, including Virgin Galactic Holdings.

Many people were expecting that this would be the year that Virgin Galactic finally launches its first commercial space flight. As of February, more than 600 people had reserved a seat on the companys SpaceShipTwo aircraft.

The company announced it would begin selecting candidates for space flights soon. The flights are expected to cost a pricey $250,000 per person.

Launching its first commercial space flight would have been a huge step forward for Virgin Galactic, but these plans will likely be on hold for the foreseeable future. The travel industry as a whole is struggling, and its unclear when well even be able to travel by airplane again, much less go into space.

But its not just climbing aboard Virgin Galactics six-passenger aircraft thats the problem. Before passengers can take a commercial space flight, they need to receive training, get fitted for a flight suit, and receive a thorough medical evaluation.

All of that involves travel and a lot of in-person contact, which is not possible when so many states are implementing mandatory stay-at-home orders.

The commercial space flight probably wont happen in 2020, but that doesnt mean all hope is lost for SPCE stock investors.

In spite of the coronavirus setback, Virgin Galactic does have potential going forward. Commercial space travel likely will become a reality within the next couple of years, and SPCE stock has the advantage of being the first publicly traded space tourism company.

The company still has healthy cash flow and is well-positioned to overcome these temporary setbacks. That makes Virgin Galactic Holdings a good long-term investment

Jamie Johnson is a personal finance freelance writer and has been writing for InvestorPlace since mid-2019. She writes for a number of other well-known financial sites, including Credit Karma, Quicken Loans and Bankrate. As of this writing, Jamie Johnson did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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Will the Coronavirus Derail the Momentum of Virgin Galactic Stock in 2020? - Investorplace.com